With days to go before the critical Mars Orbit Insertion burn (the first time the main engine will be used) the 2 Argosy ships have deployed their unmanned Probes, and the multideck isolation shroud has been peeled away to reveal each craft's lander. In the next few hours, both ships will turn so that their NERVA nuclear engines are facing into the direction of flight, and their crews will begin the process of bringing the reactors up to temperature, and going through the meticulous checklist to prepare to enter in to orbit around Mars.Modeled and rendered in Lightwave 10, with post work in PhotoshopThanks for taking a look!

Hah, so you have to warm the reactors and all before firing. I guess that makes sense. I'm going to be writing sci fi involving something very similar to this, do you know where I can get more information, not so much on design, but on the procedures of such a mission?

The MEM is built, I just have to tweak some textures. The main landscape is done-I need to create some "hero" rock formations. (If you recall Clarke's "Transit of Earth" you'll see some familiar sights...) I've got a rover design that needs to be built, so you may only see it from the distance...The suits are the biggest unknown, at this point.

As long as I can come up with a reasonably dramatic composition and light solution, I'll illustrate the whole trip, including the Venus fly-by. I'm kinda looking forward to the rendezvous of the mission ships with the space base back in Earth orbit, at the end...

No, this whole plan dates from'69 and '70, before aerobraking was considered a viable technique. They do it the brut-force way, by firing those big 'ole nuclear engines. This study by vonBraun and company was a variant of a study the previous year by Boeing, but vonBraun trimmed the mass by almost half, simply by putting the ships into elliptical orbit instead of circular orbit around Mars! Here's a link to a very good synopsis of the plan: [link]

I've always thought the Venus fly-by was asking for trouble--you're all ready tempting fate by being vulnerable to major solar activity for so long, and it seems to me that the situation would just be made worse by flying by Venus. I've never worked the numbers, I must admit, to see how much time is shaved off the Mars to Earth leg by the maneuver.

Thanks very much indeed for the link, been trying to get some decent data on several projects for quite some time now but almost all are available on the site you linked me to including the schematics that I needed. Its an extraordinary resource for anyone interested in the evolution of the space sciences, thankyou again By the way have you read the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson? Its a hard scifi set that I think you'd enjoy. I'm trying to get a design together of the colony vessel Ares from the first volume "Red Mars" there being several contradictions (spatially) in the book as to where certain sections are located so I'm just having to use a little artistic license to fill in the gaps. By a modelling exercise I don't mean a computer model, I'd like to build a miniature.

I'm glad it was useful. I love that site! If you don't know it, there is another I think you'd like, called Beyond Apollo [link]

I love Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy! Great, thoughtful stuff. I have played around with some designs of Ares in the past, trying to take clues from the text. I'd love to see what you come up with!

All I've got at the moment is a growing collection of 1/72nd shuttle main tanks, I'm going to need a lot more before I can even begin on the Ares as the whole ship is made from repurposed tanks. The central zero-g core being seven in rosette pattern all linked to form the keel of the ship. Like you say yourself the text does have some references but the main areas contradict themselves, CJ (my wife) recommended me contact Robinson to see if there was any drawings worked from that didn't appear in the hardbound edition we have. It may come down to that yet as I don't really feel justified taking so much "artistic license" on such a famous ship. Thanks for the link to beyond apollo, I had that one already from when trying to get good drawings to make my late son a model bernal sphere for a school presentation he did.